Courtney Liniewski, from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, shared the early cancer symptom she experienced that she thought was just caused by ‘sitting too long’ at her desk.
The mother first got checked in 2022
34-year-old Liniewski explained that she first realized something was wrong when she felt her neck swell up while on vacation with her husband in February 2022.
“It wasn’t painful or anything, it was this palpable lump on my neck, like I had an allergic reaction to something,” she said.
But it was hard for her to breathe
“I started having difficulty breathing that week – I couldn’t walk up or down the stairs and I had a lot of chest pain,” the mother recalled.
She then went to get checked out with a doctor, per Newsweek, and was urgently rushed to get a CT scan.
Medics told her about the tumor
Liniewski then received the difficult news from medics that she had a ‘grapefruit-sized tumor’ in her chest that was a horrifying 11cm.
She was then diagnosed with stage three follicular lymphoma, a type of blood cancer.
It was difficult for her to process
“I was hysterical for most of that time, I did a lot of crying and panicking,” the mother said of the aftermath of her diagnosis. “I was thinking the worst.”
Within less than two weeks, Liniewski was already in chemotherapy. Fortunately, she was in remission by July of that year.
She’s now shared the symptom she brushed off
Now, 3 years on, the mother raised awareness to the symptom that started at the end of 2021, which she kept brushing off as caused by ‘sitting down for too long’ at her desk.
“I was experiencing intermittent back pain but it was really sharp and intense,” she shared.
Liniewski thought she was ‘being lazy’
“It was right below my shoulder blades, in the mid sternum area in my back,” she added. “I just thought I wasn’t moving enough and I was being lazy.”
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“I was sat down a lot for my job and I was at my desk most of the day.”
Her symptoms then got worse in January
She added that her symptoms then increased in January but she wasn’t aware they were connected.
“I started losing hearing in my left ear every night and my nose was always running and it wouldn’t stop. I was just experiencing weird symptoms but nothing consistent and nothing that added up that something was really wrong.”
She still gets regular check-ups
Although it’s now been three years since she became cancer-free, Liniewski still has regular appointments with her oncologist in fear that it would return.
“Due to how aggressive the cancer was it’s basically guaranteed to come back at some point, but I haven’t required any additional treatment since,” she said.
